The words, rich, throaty, tinged with amusement, came down the wind to Martin's ears. Martin turned his head. Opposite him on the sloping weather deck, regarding him with a smile, stood the girl—"Miss Ruth."
Martin stared. Had he heard aright, "little puff"? This battle of wind and wave a little puff! And she who regarded this cataclysmic scene with such contempt—that brave and confident figure, swaying so easily to the deck's reel, that bizarre costume, that sparkling face—was she the distressed maid he had fought for the night before? Yes, he remembered that vivid, expressive face. By George, she was a beauty!
She was, without doubt, an uncommonly pretty girl, and the strange costume she wore accentuated, rather than hid, her charms. A serge skirt came but little below her knees, and beneath it Martin saw feet and ankles encased in stout, trim, absurdly small sea boots.
She wore a sailor's pea-coat, open at the front and disclosing a guernsey covering a swelling bosom. The great mass of dark hair Martin remembered so well was knotted and piled atop her head, and a blue, peaked cap perched saucily aslant the mass.
Her face was alive, vivacious. The eyes were large, dark, bright, the lips were ripe and smiling, the cheeks weather-bronzed but not swarthy.
Martin drank in the details of her appearance greedily, and they left him tongue-tied. Yes, by George, she was a beauty! Her carriage was regal, and there was about her an air of competence, of authority. She was not disturbed by her surroundings—she laughed. What had she called the storm? A puff! She seemed, by George, like a sprite of the storm! Like the steersman yonder, she seemed to belong to this setting of laboring ship and tumultuous sea. Here she came toward him with hand outstretched.
She walked easily, body inclining gracefully to the ship's whims, disdaining aid of skylight or hatch. Martin clung to the hatch with one hand and extended his other.
He thrilled to the warm clasp she gave him. He glowed at the friendly light in her eyes. She was tall, taller than she looked at a distance, almost as tall as he. She did not seem to raise her voice, yet her words reached him distinctly above the howl of the wind. He had to shout his answers.
"How does your head feel?" were her first words.
He answered reassuringly, and remembered of a sudden that it was those brown, shapely fingers that wrapped the bandage.